The musings of a Canadian studying the American Civil War, and other historical topics.

Friday, February 15, 2013

What if? The American Invasion of British North America in 1865

I recall my Canadian high school social studies teacher
saying that the American threat formed the basis of national unity.Confederation, the forging of a national
government from the British North American colonies, occurred in 1865 due to
the threat of a U.S. invasion after its Civil War.This legacy of American encroachment, they
told me, continued on to the present day by corporations, media, culture,
consumerism, and others in a long list of negative influences.This made sense to the young me, who knew no
better.I know now that this narrative
is grossly flawed, misleading and downright insulting to my understanding of
the Canada-U.S. relationship.The only
plausible part is the menace posed after the American Civil War.The potential certainly existed for conflict.Had it occurred, Canada would have been
erased from history.At the same time,
it could not have happened for a variety of reasons.Since then, the two countries mended their
differences and have become a model for international relationships.But it may not have been that way had the
mighty United States armies turned their attention northward in 1865.

The end of the Civil War marked the best opportunity
for an American attempt to conquer British North America.Previous attempts in 1775-1776 and 1812-1814
failed for two reasons.First, the
terrain impaired movement between the northern colonies and the Eastern
Seaboard.Long distances, forests, few
rivers, and hostile Native American nations reduced mobility.Any army – British or American – would have encountered
these difficulties.Anglo-American
forces fought the French and Indians in this territory – modern New York and
Pennsylvania – only with the help of friendly Natives, even then with
difficulty.Americans found out at
Quebec in 1775-76 the perils of the terrain.Their armies attacking the Niagara peninsula in 1812-13 exhausted
themselves before reaching the area.The
refusal of some state militias to deploy out of the country stemmed from their
physical condition as well as political attitudes.The small numbers of British regulars and
weak Canadian militia easily defeated them but progressed no further than the
shores of the Great Lakes.The only
practical route was the Hudson Valley and Lake Champlain corridor.The British found out twice that sufficient
American resistance as at Saratoga in 1777 and Plattsburg in 1814 could stop
any invasion attempt cold.It also led
to the inability to reinforce western units at Detroit or Chicago.All this had changed by 1865.Railroads linked the coast and the major
population centers north and south as well as east and west.Whole armies, tens of thousands strong,
could mass and/or redeploy along the northern border quickly and easily.They would have had a much easier time waging
war on the colonies than their predecessors had.

Second, the United States Army in 1865 differed from
its forbearers.Hundreds of thousands of
men served in it, the largest it had ever been up to that point and the largest
it would be until the First World War.Sheer numbers alone could have crushed the British regulars and Canadian
militia in that year.Any experience the
former gleaned from its observations of the Civil War, or participation in the
Crimea, the Indian Rebellion of 1857-1858, or China in 1860 would have been of
limited value against an experienced, rapidly approaching foe.Yet the U.S. Army had also learned how to
wage “hard war.”Stubborn rebel
resistance compelled them to change tactics from winning secessionists back to
their original allegiances into punishing the civilian population for supporting
the Confederacy.In 1861 and1862 Union
soldiers received orders to respect civilian property, including slaves.When this failed, indeed encouraged the rebels
to continue fighting, commanders in the field adopted harsher measures.They destroyed anything that may aid
Confederate resistance, including enlisting slaves as soldiers or
laborers.The Army also demonstrated its
ability to march through the heart of rebel territory with impunity, best
exemplified by Sherman’s March to the Sea and Sheridan’s Shenandoah Valley
campaign, both in 1864.Both, along with
the loss of so many men, helped to destroy the Confederacy by April 1865.The Army would have employed the same tactics
on the Canadian colonies as the best means to end the war rapidly.Had they invaded, they would have done up
north what they had done down South.

Imagine if you will President Johnson, Secretary of
War Stanton and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles ordering General Grant to
redeploy the armies to the northern border.They mass by rail at Detroit, Buffalo, and Burlington, Vermont aiming
for Canada West, the Niagara Region and Montreal, respectively.Another small army made of cavalry forms in
Wisconsin with order to move overland on Manitoba.A fleet carrying more troops sails from
Boston for Halifax.Another gathers at
San Francisco to move on the West Coast.Opposing them are a few British regulars and some militia, no more than
thirty thousand and of varying degrees of training.Ironically, they include Union Civil War
veterans their ranks.The Detroit Army
moves eastward, ripping up the recently completed Grand Trunk Railroad along
the way as it heads for Toronto.As
local forces move to block them, the Buffalo Army moves in first to capture
them from behind along the Niagara front.The Burlington Army pins down resistance in the Montreal area, the
largest population center in the Canadas at the time.The Wisconsin cavalry force seizes Winnipeg
in an epic overland march that catches the defenders completely by
surprise.The East Coast fleet blockades
the Atlantic ports and captures its fortifications, much as the West Coast
force does on the Pacific.In a few
weeks, the remnants of British North America surrenders after giving limited
resistance.At the resulting peace
conference, the British sign their colonies over to the United States.The population must then decide whether to
accept their new government or return to Europe.

None of this would ever happen.At war’s end, the British went to great lengths
to repair relations with the United States.The tragic death of President Lincoln created great sympathy for them in
Britain.Queen Victoria wrote a very
nice handwritten letter of condolence to Mary Lincoln, approved by the cabinet.The resulting negotiations over damages
caused by the raider Alabama and the subsequent Treaty of Washington helped
mend a tortured state of affairs.The
status of the Dominion of Canada was also secured for all time.Moreover, the United States Army all but disappeared
within weeks after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.Its half-million or so men returned to their
homes and families.The Army deployed
its few troops left standing to the South to aid with Reconstruction and the
Freedman’s Bureau, to the West to fight the Indians and help white migration,
and to seacoast forts.The only special
force in being was an army deployed to Texas to deter the French then occupying
Mexico. Therein lays one of the great ironies of the original Canadian
narrative: the U.S. was more worried about the French to the south than the
British to the north.Indeed, it is hard
to imagine a circumstance in which the United States would have needed to
attack Canada in the narrow time frame where both the need and the means
existed for them to do so.Perhaps an
unprovoked British attack on the Eastern Seaboard in 1865 could have convinced
the Americans to act, but this is extremely unlikely.

In sum, the United States posed a real and serious
threat to Canada in 1865.If unleashed,
their troops would most certainly have won and wreaked the greatest ruin on
their enemies.Railroads made it
possible for them to move quickly and decisively at multiple points
simultaneously in contrast to previous efforts.Their hard war policy and desire to end the matter quickly would
undoubtedly have turned the tide against the British and Canadians.Yet the razor-thin window of opportunity and
strong diplomacy prevented this from ever occurring.Certainly this was well known at the
time.That it continues in the Canadian
mindset stems from current concerns with living next to and being allied with
the U.S. as a world superpower more than a realistic portrayal of the
past.It confirms my belief that
Canadians are as much purveyors of bad history as anyone.It is not healthy and must be corrected.